


morning was mocking us

by humancorn



Series: SPN Ficlets [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Character Death & Resurrection, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, follows canon to a point, soulmate magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 08:36:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16405001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humancorn/pseuds/humancorn
Summary: AU where you have your soulmate’sdyingwords tattooed on your wrist. SamGabe Soulmate AU.





	morning was mocking us

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a long time in the making and I kinda just want to get it out there so I don't mull over it anymore. 
> 
> Fic & Chapeter titles are from "My Manic & I" by Laura Marling.

Back when Sam first learned what soulmates were, he was beyond ecstatic. An entire person made to be your perfect match in every possible way imaginable? Hell to the yeah. Suddenly the text that lined it’s way vertical down his left forearm made sense. Of course, Dean hadn’t told him at first, just what those words were, what they meant. Didn’t tell him that those were the last words you would ever hear your soulmate say, if you even heard them at all. And with their line of work? Well, not that Sam liked to think about it, but he’d probably hear those words. 

 

Dad had covered his up long before Sam had learned what they meant. A long-arching band of black ink about an inch thick right above his wrist, renewed every year to keep the mark from even having the possibility of showing through. Sometimes Sam wondered what mom’s last words were. Wondered if they were sad, or frightening, wondered what could be so horrible about them that John would’ve wanted a living memory of his wife scrubbed out of his skin. 

 

Dean’s words were short, and overall a bit amusing considering the context.  _ “Uh, no,”  _ being tattooed on your skin for life was, in Sam’s opinion, some pretty funny shit. It was pretty apparent that Dean liked his mark. With faint touches that lingered a bit too long when he was stressed to smiling at it when they were alone. But then again, he was always a romantic. 

 

And Sam’s? Well, they were interesting. Cryptic in the best sort of way. And it made him want to meet the person who would say them. Made him want to figure out just what they meant, even though they most likely wouldn’t know. Not then, at least. “ _ No one makes us do anything.”  _ Those were words that Sam tried to live by, the words that gave him the strength to walk back to the impala after every hunt even though every muscle in his body ached, and the words that gave him the motivation to leave for Stanford.  

 

Four years passed and Sam hoped that Jess was his soulmate. She seemed like it - loving in a way that he’d never experienced before, gentle in all of the right places, and a firm, consistent presence in his life. Sam loved her with everything he was, and in a somewhat maccabe way, he hoped that the last words on his lips were “ _ Oh shit, darlin’,”  _ just because he thought it would complete him, make his life feel like it had had meaning. He’d found his soulmate, and the world was  _ kind _ in a twisted sorta way, for letting him meet her. 

 

And then, Dean showed up. Took him away for a few days, came back to Jess, blood dripping down from the ceiling, mouth open but silent, and  _ fire tearing it’s way through the apartment.  _ Sam didn’t get to hear her last words. Didn’t get to confirm what he thought he already knew, not that it really mattered  _ now _ . Not that it had ever mattered. That night, as Dean drove away from California, as fire seared itself into his memory, Sam scribbled down the words he’d seen on Jess’ arm all those months ago. He tucked it away in his wallet, and tried not to think about it. 

 

It never occurred to either of them that monsters could have soulmates. Sure, humans who turned into monsters might still have their soulmarks, but things that had been monsters from the get-go? Dicey at best. That was, until they met a certain trickster with a band of black that mirrored their father’s--crisp lines of charcoal ink smothering what they assumed to be a soulmark. A trickster had a soulmark. And while that didn’t give Dean any pause about killing the bastard, it did make Sam a little wary. Though he supposed that even people who did horrible things had soulmarks, so why would that make a monster any different? It shouldn’t.  Maybe it was the way it had looked at him, like the trickster knew something and couldn’t tell him--wouldn’t tell him. Maybe it was the way Sam could feel him hovering just a bit too close when he lead them around the old school building. Maybe it’s because Sam felt something, that day, that he couldn’t explain. Either way, the trickster was gone. Stone dead in a college auditorium

 

Sam’s last words weren’t, “ _ Oh shit, darlin _ ”. Far from it. Sam’s last word was “ _ Dean _ .”  Of course that was what it was. Of fucking course. And when he came back? He was only a little ashamed that all he could think about when he wasn’t being pissed at Dean for selling his soul was Jess. Jess hadn’t been his soulmate. Jess didn’t get to meet her soulmate before she died. Because of Sam. She didn’t get to meet her soulmate because Sam had waltzed into her life and cursed her by association. It was hard not to take that to heart, to lock it away and burn the idea of looking for his soulmate since he took Jess from her’s.

 

There was a brief moment, after Jess, after Dean sold his soul to get him back, where Sam entertained the idea that his soulmate was probably one of the creatures they were hunting. It would be some sort of poetic irony, he thought. And he probably deserved it. That’s how he found himself looking for words on the arms of everything they were hunting, be it werewolf or wendigo. Part of him rationalized it as a distraction -- something to keep his mind busy and out of the proverbial depression gutter. Creatures that had started out human and were turned tended to have them, some covered and some not, but things that had always been creatures, well? Not so much. All of the deities they’d come to find were devoid of markings or even cover-ups. And Sam knew that on some level, he shouldn’t be worried about this. Especially with his days with Dean running out and trying to find Bela and the Colt. So, he locked it away, focused on trying to find a loophole in demon contracts and prayed. 

 

******

 

Time passed and suddenly they found themselves Broward county, Florida, caught in a time-loop of Tuesday after Tuesday. Dean had died over a hundred times at the hands of the trickster they thought they’d killed back in Massachusetts  _ months ago  _ and any thought of soulmates was promptly put to the wayside and replaced with a burning slate of rage. When it was finally Wednesday and Dean was laid out, blood spilling onto the blacktop of a motel parking lot, Sam had taken that rage that had been boiling quietly under his skin and made it into something useful. He was going to kill the trickster, if it cost him everything.

 

*******

 

It took a year to corner the trickster again. A year of hate boiling quicker and harder in his stomach, bile thick and acidic at the back of his throat every time he cornered a lead. And then he was there, back at the mystery spot where this had all started, standing over the body of the man who had loved him like a father. The trickster stood on the other side of the room, glaring like Sam was the one who was in the wrong. The black band of ink was still there, wrapped around his forearm like a snake coiled to strike.

 

“I hoped you’d be smarter than this.” The Trickster said. He was tense, the line of his jaw was tight as he spoke. 

 

“Bring him back.” Sam growled, fire burning in his chest. 

 

“No.” The Trickster ran  a hand through his hair and chuckled hard through his teeth. He circled around Sam, his hands clasped tight behind his back, knuckles white. “I  _ need you  _ to be smarter than this.”

 

“Why? What do you even want from me?” 

 

“I  _ want you  _ to see that Dean is dead and stop. bothering. me. because I can’t fucking help you.” 

 

Sam had a second stake in his left sock. All he needed to do was distract him long enough to--

 

“Killing me won’t bring your brother back.” The Trickster said, as if he was reading Sam’s thoughts. “Listen, kid. There's a lesson here that I've been trying to drill into that freakish Cro-Magnon skull of yours.” He stopped in front of Sam and poked him hard in the chest, “This obsession to save Dean? The way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other? Nothing good comes out of it. Just blood and pain. Dean's your weakness. And the bad guys know it, too. It's gonna be the death of you, Sam. Sometimes you just gotta let people go.”

 

“Why?” Sam asked, voice carefully even.

 

“What?” The Trickster looked surprised for a moment, before scowling up at him.

 

“Why? Why do I have to let him go? I can get him back, so why should I just  _ accept it?”  _

 

The trickster barked out a laugh as his fingers curled in Sam’s shirt, bringing him down to his level. Sam could feel something building in his chest, swelling inside of him until it was hard to force air into his lungs. His right arm felt like there were white-hot flames licking down it, winding  around his wrist. 

 

“Look, Sam. I’m not happy here either, believe you me. I just--” The Trickster looked him in the eye and paused, brow furrowing in confusion as Sam grabbed his wrist and yanked them apart, the touch of the Trickster’s skin scalding the palm of his hand. Sam wavered backward, his legs giving out from beneath him as the burning gave way to the feeling of the cold air surrounding him. Quickly, Sam tugged the sleeve of his shirt up, his fingers surveying the surprisingly-not-burnt-to-a-crisp skin. It was smooth, untouched, though a bit warmer than was typical. 

 

“What the fuck.” Sam whispered. No marks, no flames, no burns, no cuts,  _ nothing.  _ It took a few moments to look up again, finding the trickster a few feet away, staring at his hand like it had been the thing that had burned him. There was something of about him, then. Something that Sam couldn’t quite put his finger on as the trickster just  _ stood there,  _ unmoving for what seemed like eternity. 

 

“What was that?” Sam asked, voice cracking and rough.  _ What the actual fuck was that.  _ The trickster’s eyes shifted to him as Sam stood. He was silent, which was, admittedly pretty damn frightening. Sam took a step forward and the trickster took one back. And then it clicked in Sam’s head --  _ an advantage --  _ and he fucking booked it toward him, tackled the smaller man before he could snap his fingers, and the burning was there again--scorching hot on his skin but he fought through. Bare skin was scalding but cloth was safe enough, he found. But now that he was here, sitting heavy on the trickster’s chest with his arms sprawled out and pinned down above his head, Sam didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish. 

 

“Bring Dean back or I’ll kill you.” Sam said.

 

“Oh?” The trickster leered, his teeth bared in a wide grin, “Will you? Do it. I’m right here. You’ve got a stake in your sock, right? Take it out, take me out. Do it.” 

 

His eyes were gold. There was a small scar above his left eyebrow and tiny, sparse freckles sprinkled over his nose and cheeks. There was a band of black ink on his arm. And there were  golden-shining words poking through the ink-dark skin:  _ “Dean”.  _ And then above it,  _ “Hear me out. I can explain, okay? Please.”  _ Sam laughed and he could feel himself loosening the grip on the trickster’s wrists. 

 

“Fuck me running.” Sam said, dropping his head onto the trickster’s shoulder. “I hate you. I fucking despise you. Bring Dean back,  _ please _ .”

 

“No.” The line of his mouth was firm and devoid of emotion, “This doesn’t change anything.” 

 

“Oh, but it does. Now,” Sam lifted himself up again and looked the trickster in the eye, “Now, I know what game we’re playing.”


End file.
